The Bishop who pleaded with Trump: ‘Will anyone speak?’

Bishop Mariann E. Budde was a little nervous as she stood in the Canterbury Pulpit above the president on Tuesday.

The leader of the Diocese of Washington, planned for several months to preach about the three elements of unity – integrity, honesty and humility. But just 24 hours earlier, he watched President Trump unveil his agenda from the inauguration steps, while conservative Christians anointed him with prayers.

He was no longer just campaigning, he was leading, he said. There has been little opposition to his fledgling presidency and executive orders. He felt called to add a fourth element to his sermon: A plea for mercy, for all who fear the way he threatened to use his power.

“I had a feeling that people were watching what was happening and wondering: Is anyone going to speak?” he explained quietly in an interview on Tuesday night. “Will anyone say anything about the rotation of the country?”

So he took a deep breath and spoke.

President Trump, sitting seven feet below and 40 feet to his right, watched. The representatives of American Christianity began to speak to each other, and the most powerful man in the world was arrested by the words of the white-haired female bishop from the pulpit. Until he turns around.

For everyone watching, the grandeur of the Washington National Cathedral was forced, in a moment of wonder, into a sudden union. And with that, the war that exists is not just about politics, but about morality. In a flash, America’s spiritual power struggle erupted in a rare conflict.

The Canterbury Pulpit faced the bully pulpit on the biggest stage possible.

For about ten years, American Christianity has been destroyed in every way. Christians fought over whether women should be allowed to preach. Above the gay scene. The definition of marriage. The separation of church and state. Black Lives Matter. And in most of that is the rise of Mr. Trump as the head of the modern American church, and the rise of a right-wing Christian force that proclaims itself to be the only voice of God.

Many of these battles are replaced, with hardly any dialogue. Christians with opposing viewpoints almost never worship in the same sanctuary. They don’t listen to each other’s sermons, or listen to other people’s prayers. Mainstream Protestants wondered if their voices had any authority. As he prepares to gain more power through Mr. Trump’s second term, Bishop Budde is trying something different with his interfaith service.

Mr. Trump was unmoved. When the sermon ended, he glanced at Vice President JD Vance, a conservative Catholic, who shook his head in disapproval. On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump on the social media platform Truth Social, demanded an apology from the “so-called Bishop” and “Radical Left hard line Trump hater”.

“He brought his church into the world of politics in a very thankless way,” Mr Trump said on Wednesday. “He had a very bad voice, and was neither persuasive nor intelligent.”

Bishop Budde, 65 and the first woman elected to the role, and Mr. Trump clashed in 2020 while holding a Bible aloft at the Church of St. John, after officers fired tear gas at protesters demanding racial justice in nearby Lafayette Square. He wrote in an article in The New York Times that he was “outraged” and “horrified” that he was using sacred symbols to reinforce his “unbiblical position.”

On Wednesday, Representative Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia, said that Bishop Budde should be “added to the impeachment list.” Others have argued that gender undermines any claim to spiritual authority.

“A female bishop is all you need to know how this will turn out,” Catholic anti-abortion activist Kristan Hawkins wrote in X.

But the progressive Christians finally realized their convictions. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Catholic who championed a revival of liberal Christianity after Trump’s first presidency, left Washington and went with him. Catholic power in America has shifted significantly to the right since Pope Francis, now 88, took office in Washington during the Obama era.

More than 14,000 people signed an online petition thanking Bishop Budde within four hours. Episcopalians around Washington proudly posted online in recognition that Bishop Budde was their spiritual leader, representing their Christianity.

On the other hand, Bishop Budde felt that his sermon was “a view that is not very current, and a view of Christianity that has been relatively quiet in the public sphere,” he said.

He knew he didn’t have much power in the room, he said, “because I wasn’t part of the inner circle around the president and his party.”

The place was important, and the power of the Christian story offered its word. Washington National Cathedral has long been home to important American political moments – services marking the end of wars, and funerals for presidents from Eisenhower to Carter.

And the Canterbury Pulpit itself was an impressive scene, even without speaking to the president, Bishop Budde knew. Caen limestone is believed to have been brought to England by William the Conqueror, and was used in Canterbury Cathedral itself. The pulpit was preached by priest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. his last Sunday sermon, a few days before he was killed.

The central sculpture depicts the signing of Magna Carta, the 809-year-old charter that declared England’s monarch to be above the law.

Bishop Budde held the high position of no power beyond the spiritual authority of his office, and the power of constant speech, for 14 minutes. He wore a liturgical vestment, a rochet and a red and white chimere, used in times of prayer without the Eucharist. His academic cap represented his seminary degree. There was a black embroidery around the neck with a picture of the Cathedral.

Bishop Budde does not believe that he spoke directly for God. “I mean, this is the best I can do to understand and interpret what I believe in our teachings and scriptures and what the Holy Spirit may want us to hear,” he said.

In the midst of America’s diversity, he sees the ability to discern spiritual authority as a major task. He thought of what Howard Thurman, an American theologian, calls “the voice of the self.”

“What is it really?” he asked. “What is about power because it’s true, and about the basic principles we can agree on?”

Inaugural services have previously been hosted by the Cathedral but planned in conjunction with the presidential inauguration committee, meaning the president-elect usually chose the participants. But that changed last year, when the Cathedral itself took over the planning ahead of election day, Bishop Budde said. It is a movement towards religious independence, so the religious services will never be interfered with, and will not be considered as anointing or anointing.

After Mr. Trump’s victory in November, the Cathedral provided its team with a selection of suggested music and readings to consider for the service. But the choice of publishers is reserved solely for the Cathedral, a Cathedral spokesman said.

The part of the sermon that will attract the most attention, however, is not composed until hours before the service.

“Begging for mercy is a very humbling thing,” said Bishop Budde. “I didn’t demand anything from him. I pleaded with him, like, do you see the humanity of these people? Do you agree that people are afraid of this country? … If not him, if not the president, could there be someone else?”

On Wednesday afternoon, Bishop Budde was still working after that.

He said he did not expect the level of anger and personal attacks his words would elicit. People questioned everything from their nature and character to the state of their eternal soul, and “how long will it take for my eternal soul, and if I am in this country.”

“Perhaps it is meaningless to me, when I decided to plead with the president, I thought it would be different,” he said, “because it is an acknowledgment of his position, his current power, and the millions of people who put it’s there.”

But he also did not expect the full recognition from many others.

“That’s what I say all the time,” he said. “But publicly, people don’t care.”

In the pulpit, he said, “you can never predict how things will turn out.”